Allen Stanford

MIAMI (Reuters) - Antigua and Barbuda is set to revoke the knighthood it gave Texas financier Allen Stanford, who is awaiting trial on charges he operated a $7 billion fraud using his bank on the twin-island Caribbean nation. Antigua and Barbuda's Labor, Public Administration and Empowerment Minister Jacqui Quinn-Leandro, who chairs the country's National Honors Committee, said on Monday a recommendation to strip Stanford of the knighthood had been sent to Governor General Dame Louise Lake-Tack. "We've heard the cries of the general public about the honor being brought into disrepute," Quinn-Leandro said in comments quoted by the Caribbean news agency CANANEWS after an ... Read Full Story

Texas financier R. Allen Stanford, currently jailed on charges accusing him of bilking investors out of $7 billion, has been taken to a hospital, his lawyer said Thursday. Stanford was set to appear in a Houston federal courtroom for a hearing on whether he can get a new attorney. But his current lawyer, Dick DeGuerin, said that at about 5:30 a.m. Thursday, Stanford was taken from the privately run prison where he is being held in the Houston area to a hospital in nearby Conroe with a high pulse rate. DeGuerin said he did not have any other information about Stanford's condition. A spokeswoman ... Read Full Story

MIAMI (Reuters) - Florida regulators seldom checked the Miami operations of Allen Stanford after giving the accused fraud master unprecedented freedom to send cash overseas and sell investment securities, the Miami Herald newspaper reported on Sunday. Beginning in 1998, the newspaper said, Stanford had clearance from Florida bank regulators to move money from a Florida office to Antigua without filing reports to government agencies and to sell certificates of deposit to wealthy investors without fraud checks. "Over objections by the state's chief banking lawyer -- including concerns that Stanford was laundering money -- regulators granted sweeping powers never given to a private company," the ... Read Full Story

HOUSTON (Reuters) - A federal judge on Tuesday ordered Texas financier Allen Stanford, accused of a $7 billion fraud, held without bail until trial. U.S. prosecutors had argued that Stanford, who faces life in prison if convicted on all charges contained in a 21-count indictment, had the means and motive to flee. "In total, the evidence proffered by the government is sufficient to weigh in favor of detention," U.S. District Judge David Hittner said in an order that revokes a $500,000 bond that a magistrate had granted Stanford on Thursday. "We are very disappointed and we are going to appeal to the 5th Circuit," ... Read Full Story

Texas financier R. Allen Stanford wants to be moved from a private prison because he's been without air conditioning and shares a cell with up to 10 other inmates. Stanford is jailed on charges of operating a $7 billion Ponzi scheme. He's been held at Joe Corley Detention Facility since being arrested and brought to Texas from Virginia last month. Stanford's attorney Dick DeGuerin says in court filings that conditions are "intolerable." He says Stanford's cell was without power for part of last week and didn't have air conditioning for at least a week. The facility is run by Boca Raton, Fla.-based GEO Group. ... Read Full Story